Top 10 Project Management Trends for 2012
Posted by Elizabeth
2012. The year of the Olympic Games in London. Already, my capital city is awash with people proclaiming what a great Games it is going to be and how we are all in this together. Just as well, then, that ESI has proclaimed that 2012 is the year of project collaboration, as all the project teams working on the venues, logistics, ticketing and events will need to be working collaboratively to make it all work.
The experts at ESI have come up with 10 trends for this year. They are:
1. Programme management will gain momentum, but resources remain in short supply
Apparently, this is the year where large initiatives undertaken by corporations and government agencies will be recognised for what they are and aren’t: namely programmes, not projects. I wonder if the UK is already more advanced in this respect. We’ve had the MSP certification for a while now, and programme management is a recognised career path. However, I’m pleased that the prediction is that we will see more investments made in competency models, training, methodology development, tool use, and career pathing to ensure that professionals who carry the title Programme Manager are fit for the role.
2. Collaboration software solutions will become an essential business tool for project teams
This year it’s about the value that tools can offer, not the fact of having tools themselves. This speaks to the theme of collaboration, and ESI say that as collaboration is central to project management, having a site which allows project artefacts to be created, shared, and distributed within a repository that provides Web-based access and critical functions such as automatic distribution and notification, version control, and user authentication, greatly enhances productivity.
“From the ascendancy of social media to the structured implementation of collaboration tools by the PMO and the steady rise of communities of practice, we are fast approaching a tipping point,” said J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, Executive Vice President, Product Strategy & Management, ESI International. “Those project organisations that don’t exploit such collaborative channels and technology will risk missing the most promising combination of force multipliers of the decade.”
3. Learning transfer will become the new mantra, but with little structured application
The PMO comes into its own this year, and the experts say that PMO leaders will be focusing on learning transfer. According to ESI, while L&D and business heads agree that sustained learning is a sound idea, very few organisations will invest in a formal process to make it happen. In 2012 they say that we will see many organisations discussing the importance of learning transfer without really putting in place a structured approach to ensure it happens. Oh well. Maybe in 2013!
4. Agile blends with waterfall for a new “hybrid” approach
Agile. Yes, it’s everywhere, even in waterfall projects.
5. Smarter project investments will require a stronger marriage between project management and business process management
Process improvement projects: I don’t know many project managers who jump at the opportunity to do these, but apparently in the financial services industry, and specifically in the insurance sector, there will be a continued focus on performing business processes as efficiently as possible to drive down operating costs. ESI say that when new projects are proposed, their value will be judged to a large extent on the impact they will have on the organisation’s business processes, so this looks like it will become part of the criteria for project selection. They recommend that project managers get to understand business process management.
6. Internal certifications in corporations and federal agencies will eclipse the PMP
This is a brave prediction. ESI say that in the U.S. government as well as Fortune 500 corporations, a hierarchy of internal credentials has overshadowed the PMP in terms of prominence. It doesn’t comment on how transferable these internal credentials are: I would guess not very, and that externally recognised credentials will still remain important for job seekers.
7. More PMO heads will measure effectiveness on business results
What? They aren’t doing this already?
8. Good project managers will buck unemployment trends
This prediction is excellent news, and given the level of investment and interest that some industries are seeing (the increase in the number of London coffee shops made it into the news this week, so some areas are still growing despite the recession), project managers look almost recession-proof.
ESI say that good project managers are hard to find and that there is a “hunger” for project management basics, in particular risk management, which will continue to surge in 2012, especially in such countries as India and China where project manager attrition rates are high and continuous training of new staff is critical.
9. Client-centric project management will outpace the triple constraint
I completely agree with this prediction, not least because my own book on the subject, Customer-Centric Project Management, which I’m writing with IT expert Phil Peplow, comes out later this year. In the book we argue that the constraint of the triple constraint is no longer appropriate for today’s workplace, and that value is defined by the customer. Plus we offer a handy way to work out what ‘value’ actually is and how to measure it regularly.
ESI agree, and predict that while the triple constraint remains important, it is no longer the be-all-and-end-all for project success. They say that the new definition of project success is that a project can exceed its time and cost estimates so long as the client determines that it is successful by whatever criteria they use. Hurrah!
10. HR professionals will seek assessments to identify high-potential project managers
How are we going to recruit project managers this year? Apparently it’s all about assessment. While ESI don’t say exactly how these assessments are going to take place, think back to the assessment centres you did as part of the milkround after university, and my guess is that the recruitment process will look similar to that, except with fewer people in brand new suits clutching brand new CVs.
What are your predictions for 2012? Let us know in the comments.
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Tags: 2012, customer-centric project management, Predictions, Trends
2 Comments to “Top 10 Project Management Trends for 2012”
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J. LeRoy Ward says:
Hi Elizabeth: I’d like to respond to a couple of your comments about the ESI 2012 Top PM Trends list.
With respect to the first one on program management, I noticed many years ago while in the UK (and I’ve been traveling to the UK on business for more than 20 years) that program management in the commercial sector was more mature than what was practiced in the U.S. and elsewhere for that matter. The U.S. Government, and the U.S. Department of Defense in particular, has had a very strong practice of program management going back many years (I spent 17 years in the U.S. Government in four different organizations so I have some background knowledge of this). But it has been only recently that the commercial sector globally is very interested in how program management can help them.
In fact, at the very first PMI EMEA congress held in London, I ran across Ken Lane formerly of Project Manager Today who also was a publisher of PM books. At his stand, he had quite a collection of program management titles. I bought them all, had them shipped home, and went through them ultimately selecting one for inclusion in our course Program Management. That book, “Managing Programmes of Business Change” was authored by John Bartlett, a great guy, who still teaches for us at ESI. It was very well received. Since then, many other books in program management have been written, including one by Ginger Levin and I entitled “Program Management Complexity: A Competency Model” published by CRC Press (a division of Taylor & Francis) where we try to fill a gap as it relates to competencies of program managers engaged in highly complex endeavors. Nonetheless, to this day a search on Amazon reveals few books in the field.
With respect to the 6th trend on internal certifications, I think you raise a very interesting point. My guess is that an internal credential will transfer quite well, and impress resume readers, if such a certification is given by an organization or corporation that is well-known throughout the world, or at least, its specific industry. So, for example, if one were an IBM-certified Project Manager, I would suspect that those in the technology field would have some sense that that certification was very carefully thought through and that the individual possessing it had to pass certain knowledge and experience criterion in order to achieve it. On the other hand, if one holds a certfication from a company that is not well known I just don’t think it will carry the same “punch.” Not to say it’s not valuable, but if I were promoting it in my search for another position, I would make sure I explained the requirements I had to meet in order to earn it.
My recommendation to folks in our field is to earn the PMP if they can, notwithstanding that they may have a company certification. The credential may at least help one get one’s foot in the door at least. But the really fortunate people are those for whom earning the PMP is one step in their internal certification program. Like a man who wears both a belt AND suspenders, it never hurts to have as many bases covered as possible.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to provide some background and Happy New Year!
Elizabeth says:
Hi, and thanks for such a comprehensive reply. I am really interested to see where programme management goes this year, and I hope that over here the Olympics and some other large capital investment programmes will spur people on to bigger and better things, with a more structured career path.
I think you are right about internal certificates. I imagine that large companies with dedicated learning and development facilities will put together structured, challenging internal development pathways for their project managers. Small companies can’t compete with that. The difficulty, though, will be in terminology and methodology and how transferable these are between companies. Of course, you can always learn the jargon of a new company, but one of the benefits of PRINCE2 and PMP is that the provided a standard vocabularly and terminology for describing projects. If we want project management to be moving towards being a profession, I think individual company schemes will muddy the waters. Having said that, I think project managers should get as much training and development as they can, so if your company offers a training and certification scheme, you should definitely do it!